


I'll Hold You Through the Night

by FireSoul



Series: Waking Up In Vegas [3]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: F/M, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-21
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-08-10 04:30:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7830418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireSoul/pseuds/FireSoul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Sara's little revenge prank Len needs a place to sleep, so naturally he's turned Sara's payback into payback of his own, but it doesn't go exactly how he thought it would.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'll Hold You Through the Night

When Sara woke up in the morning, this being the second time she had ever awoken next to Leonard, she was much more calm about it than she had been the first time. Granted, considering she had put a knife to his throat the first time there really wasn't a way for it to be any worse. Last night Leonard had come to sleep in her room, only fair considering she froze his over as payback for stealing her best knife. Waking up next to him was… different. Sure this time she didn't have a raging headache or memory loss, but it was more than that. She suddenly realized that she hasn't actually slept with anyone since coming back to life. She's hooked up plenty of times; make no mistake about that. But she hasn't actually slept with another person. All of those one night stands; they were fast and void of any actual feeling. All she felt was the animalistic hunger of her bloodlust, she never felt at peace.

But waking up next to Leonard, when she's aware that he's there, didn't make her feel empty like she usually did. Maybe it was because they hadn't done anything but sleep, or maybe it was because she hadn't had a nightmare during the course of the night. But it was nice.

"I should go before people start walking through the halls," Len suddenly spoke up, making Sara realize that he was in fact awake.

She rolled over to face him, hoping he didn't notice how her breath hitched inside her throat at the revelation of their close proximity.

"What?" She asked, a teasing smirk crossing her face mostly to hide her blush. "You afraid they'll find out you slept in the same bed as your wife?" She mocked and he smirked back at her now, only making her blush just a little more.

He didn't say anything while he pushed himself up and off the bed, crossing the room and leaving her to watch after him as he left.  
.  
.  
.

Len walked out of Sara's room during the early hours of the morning, although if he were being honest he didn't really want to. He did it because they have continuously said that their accidental marriage means nothing to either of them, and they would never live it down if the others found out they had spent the night in the same room.

This of course didn't stop him from returning to Sara's room the following night, considering his hadn't entirely thawed out yet.

The previous night, Sara had been a sound sleeper. She had rolled onto her side facing away from him and stayed that way throughout the night. But tonight was different; tonight was a freaking horror show. It started after midnight, when Len was still lying awake and Sara had fallen asleep. It started off simple; she rolled over once and then onto her back. She flung an arm carelessly up onto her pillow, and at first he had written it off as her trying to get comfortable in her sleep. But after another few minutes she let out a not so gentle kick that collided with Leonard's shin. He let out a whispered curse at the sudden pain, but he quickly stopped himself when he saw how Sara's face had contorted in what appeared to be pain.

"Sara?" He asked but he got no response. "Sara?" He asked again, this time reaching over and giving her shoulder a gentle nudge, which turned out to be a big mistake.

She bolted up into a sitting position and started sobbing. Not whimpering, but full on sobbing with fat tears streaming down her face as she screamed out in what Len could only describe as agony. He lay there completely stunned for a good few seconds, before he finally sat up and began trying to wake her. He first tried simply putting a hand on her shoulder, but she responded by jerking forward and had he not wrapped his arms around her she would've fallen off the bed. Of course if she reacted violently to just barely being touched, the sensation of being grabbed and restrained went over even worse. She began thrashing about wildly, desperate to get out of his grip. But Len only wrapped his legs around hers in order to restrain her further as he leaned in closer so that he could whisper into her ear, which was not easy considering head was whipping around just was violently as the rest of her.

"Shh, Sara calm down, you're safe." He finally managed to whisper to her as he began to rub his thumb in a small circle over the bare skin of her arm. "You're on the Waverider Sara, you're safe." He promised and she did, miraculously, seem to calm down a little at his words or maybe his touch.

Either way Len knew stopping would be nothing but a death sentence, or at the very least a sentence to the med bay. So he kept going, kept rubbing her arm up and down with longer strokes as she calmed and kept telling her that she was ok. Eventually her body became still, her sobs had turned to mere whimpers, and soon they stopped all together. Her breath once again became slow and steady, her face relaxed and her body was slumped limply against him as she slept. On one hand Leonard was extremely grateful that she had calmed, but on the other hand she had never once woken and so now he was stuck with her in his lap and a fear that moving her would only make things go bad again. After a minute or two of contemplation, mainly over if the pain she'd inflict on him for waking her would be better or worse than the pain for waking up in his arms in the morning. But he eventually let out a sigh and slowly lowered himself back, taking Sara with him and allowing her to remain on top of him.

"Alright, now please don't kill me in the morning." He murmured as he tried to get as comfortable as possible with 117 pounds of assassin on top of him.  
.  
.  
.

When Sara opened her eyes in the morning the first thing she noticed was that this was the first time she was waking up. That had her curious, because it was rare for her to go one night without waking up from a nightmare, but two is just unheard of. The second thing she noticed was that she was lying on something that was definitely not her pillow, and after rubbing the sleep from her eyes she realized that she was lying on top of Leonard. With a startled shout at the revelation she quickly rolled off him and accidently woke him up somewhere in the process.

"What?" He groaned in a half asleep voice as he sat up and rubbed the sleep from his own eyes. For a brief minute he seemed to be just as confused as Sara, but as he looked around the room and looked as though he was remembering something, the confusion faded away. "You ok?" He finally asked.

"Yeah," Sara replied, albeit unsurely, which told Leonard that she probably has no idea she was in such a horrible state last night.

"Good, and for the record, you rolled onto me last night." He was lying, but she didn't seem to catch it. Instead she only nodded.

"Sorry," she apologized but he waved it off.

"Don't worry about it, I'll see you later." He said, again he didn't WANT to leave her but they do both have reputations to protect. So he got up and headed for the door, a part of him wondering if maybe she were as disappointed in his departure as he was.  
.  
.  
.

The nights continued on like that for Sara and Leonard, even long after Len's room and all of it's contents had thawed out. The others took notice eventually of course, but so far the only acknowledgment that had been given were a few pointed looks, and those were things that Sara and Leonard could live with. Most nights Sara slept just fine, sure she would toss and turn a little over the course of the hours, but that was it. Then there were nights much like the second one they spent together, not counting the drunken one, where she would plunge into a full-blown panic in her sleep and would be completely oblivious to it in the morning. Len never told her that it happened, because when the two of them were sitting and freezing together in the engine room she had mentioned that she hardly ever slept at night. She had said that she almost always woke up screaming, and so he knew how pleasantly amazed she was each morning when she awoke peacefully. She isn't remembering the nightmares, she may be screaming out bloody murder in her sleep but she's not waking up in the midst of it. It may only be something small, the notion that she's sleeping peacefully through the night all the time, but Leonard can see the positive effect it's having on Sara. She's happier, the confidence she displays in battle is more than confidence in her abilities; it's in herself. He never really noticed before, but all this time Sara had been walking around as though she were still half dead. But with the nightmares a thing of the past, as far as she is concerned, the smile she wears is real.

Still, Len knew that he wouldn't be able to keep her night terrors a secret from her forever, but he was impressed that he managed to get away with it for over a month.

She started the way she normally does, by tossing and turning. Len held his breath as he waited for her to either progress or settle, praying that it would be the latter. But unfortunately it wasn't and before long she was smacking away his hands as she started crying out.

"No," she murmured in a slurred voice, "No, no." She continued, her voice picking up volume as she continued shoving Leonard away.

He was sitting up and leaning over her at this point, so she almost collided her head with his chin when she suddenly rocketed up with her fist swinging to punch some unseen enemy. Len caught her arm and gently pulled it back to her side, using his legs to help in restraining her writhing body as she jerked around in his grasp.

"Shh, it's ok. It's ok Sara, I've got you." He whispered to her, sometimes it was hard to tell if she was getting easier to calm or if he had simply gotten better at it.

In all honesty it was probably a mix of the two, as lately it seemed to take her half the time to calm down as it used to. He had learned not to hold her too tight, although if he were to only put one hand on her it was usually worse than not touching her at all. She needed her space to spaz out, but she also calmed a lot faster with his arms around her. She also calmed faster the more he talked to her, as if the outside voice was replacing whatever horrid images she saw in her dreams with safe and calming ones. But tonight, whatever she was seeing was just too much, and as Leonard pulled her closer to him her eyes snapped open.

At first Len didn't even notice; he was too busy moving his hand up and down her arm and shushing her that he paid no attention. But eventually it became obvious to him that the sobs that came from the shuddering woman in his arms were those of a person who knew what was happening.

"It's ok," he continued to tell her, tightening his grip on her now that he could and holding her closer.

She didn't say anything to him, just clutched tightly to fistfuls of his shirt as he rocked. She sobbed hard and violently into his chest, and only after getting through an attack of hiccups did she finally will herself to speak.

"Have I done this before?" She asked through her now slower but still evident sobs and Len sighed.

"Yeah," he admitted, "A few times a week, but it's been decreasing." He wasn't lying, and he hoped that she knew that. She was making progress, maybe not as quickly as she thought, but she was getting better and he didn't want this revelation to send her spiraling backwards.

She pulled away ever so slightly from his chest, looking up at him with watery, fearful, and amazed eyes as she realized that he had been holding her every other night and protecting her from the nightmares that she apparently was still having. She thought about asking why he didn't tell her, about scolding him, and briefly she even considering kissing him. But instead she just pressed her head back into his chest and let him rock her until she had finally forgotten the details of her horrible dream and her tears had all dried up. After that they still sat together in silence, neither of them really sure of where to go from here. Eventually they just ended up laying down, Leonard's arms still wrapped securely around Sara and Sara's head still pillowed on his chest.

"Thank you," she finally murmured and she could almost feel the smirk that was lighting up his face.

"Well I apparently made a vow to care for you, so it's the least I could do." He said into her hair with a mock sigh, making her smile giddily at the slightly teasing tone in his voice.


End file.
